


Xander Harris and the Raiders of the Lost Scooby

by OtherCat



Series: OtherCat's Snippets and Incomplete Fic [18]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: And kind of adapted after being a thrall for a few years, Demons, Gen, Old Norse, Vaguely Viking Demons, Well Huldra Anyway, Xander ended up in their world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-26
Updated: 2005-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-04 08:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10271975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: Xander’s managed to make a home for himself in the dimension where he’d found himself. Now years later, the Scoobies come to the rescue.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As far as I know, this snippet never made it to my LJ. A lot of the names/culture comes from the Viking Answer Lady IIRC. I did not get very far with this, and I really wish I had.

"Ohhh." Groa's eyes were wide as she gazed at her dower-chest. Thick fingers with stubby claws traced the gripping beasts that coiled around chest in opposite directions, so that the last two beasts faced eachother on either side of a stylized sun. There was a small hole where the brass fittings for the keyhole and lock would go. The lid and sides of the chest had been decorated with the more traditional symbols of matrimony, fertility and fidelity with carefully fitted and joined pieces of wood.  "It's wonderful, Xander," she said, and bounced.

Xander grinned. "It's not finished yet, the only reason I'm letting you look at it now, is because I doubt I'd be able to endure the pouting."

"I do _not_ pout," Groa denied--as her lower lip stuck out, and her blue eyes widened and grew limpid, as if with unshed tears.

Xander threw up his hands as if to fend off the pout. "Ansel, Hayrn, make her stop!" 

His apprentice, and Groa's older brother respectively, laughed at him. "If we tried, she might pout at _us_ and then where would we be?"  Hayrn said reasonably.

Groa glared at her brother, ears back and tail twitching. Then all three huldra went instantly still, ears forward, faces turned toward Xander's front door. Xander went still as well, straining to catch whatever sound had spooked the three demons.  Then he _did_ hear it, though faintly. Someone ringing the raid-bell. "Shit," he swore in English.  "Hayrn, take Bill and Ted, and get Groa out of here--"

"They're too close, they might see," Hayrn said in a much too reasonable tone that indicated that he had no intention of running off and leaving a defenseless (right) human freedman alone to fend off raiders. Groa meanwhile growled something about not being a child. 

Xander snorted. "Fine. Groa, Ansel, get up in my loft. My crossbow's under the bed. I _really_ hope your aim's improved."  Ansel grabbed the dower-chest  and ran up the stairs behind Groa, then pulled the stairs  up after them. Groa didn't even make an indignant protest about her aim.

With Groa and Ansel in a (relatively) safe place, Xander spared a few moments of thought for defense. The windows were already shuttered for the night, the front and back  doors were locked and barred. He and Hayrn spent the next few minutes upending the work table to block the workroom door, and scattering nails around the front door. Then Hayrn grabbed a mallet, and Xander grabbed his axe and they forted up behind 

Xander's kitchen table and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It was just a little after midnight when there was a very unraiderlike knock on the door. "Xander? The raiders have Arli and half the warriors and thralls penned up in the house--they're asking after you," it was Ketil, one of Arli's son-in-laws. He sounded out of breath, and tired. Xander glanced at Hayern, who's ears were erect and vibrating.

"Alone?" Xander mouthed. Hayern nodded. Xander cautiously approached the door, ax in hand, and swept the nails aside with his foot before unbarring and unlocking the heavy oak door. He opened it slowly, using the door as a shield. No crossbow bolts went flying in either direction, and Ketil entered, walking with a pronounced limp, and smelling of sweat, burning things, and blood. "Be careful of the nails--what do you mean they're asking after me?" Xander said, and shut the door behind Ketil. "Do they have windows that need fixing?"   

Ketil snorted. "I don't know, perhaps you could ask them."

"Are Father and Mother hurt, Ketil?" Groa called from the loft. A glance showed her perched at the rail, looking like she might jump down, skirts be damned, and race out to the house.

Ketil shook his head. "They're mostly unhurt. Three thralls and a warrior were badly wounded. One of them may not last the night. A small raiding party, no more than seven, two were not human--but like no demon I've ever seen. They had a witch, red-haired and lynx-eyed, and a blonde shield maid as strong as a troll."

Hayern's eyes widened in astonishment as he looked at Xander. "Like folk in the stories you used to tell us!" He said.

It's definitely possible to feel heart stopping elation, and gut wrenching dismay at the same time. Xander discovered that as he see-sawed violently between the two of them. Elation that Buffy and Willow had finally found him, and the dismay for pretty much the same reason. _Six years._ Xander wondered how long it had been for them. Shorter? Longer? He groaned. "My friends, they've come to rescue me."

"Well, you'll need to rescue _them_ if Mother Eshu gets her wits together," Ketil said. 

Xander shuddered. Eshu had a vicious temper, and a talent for hexes that made the funny syphilis look like the chicken pox. "Oh man," he said in English, then switched to huldra. "We should go then, and quickly." Xander headed for the door, ax still in hand, and quite predictably, skidded on the loose nails, and landed on his ass, narrowly avoiding gutting himself with his ax. The huldra laughed, and Ketil bent to help Xander to his feet. "I'm watched over by a god with a evil sense of humor," Xander muttered. "That's the only explanation I can think of." Walking more carefully, he opened the door and headed out into the night. 


End file.
